U.S. DEFECTOR IN MOSCOW IS PICTURED AS A PARANOID IN WIFE'S TESTIMONY IN FLORIDA DIVORCE CASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000700290005-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 6, 2005
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: December 5, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

` ~C''">, Fes"`
,,
Jr. S., Defector .in Moscow. Is Pictured as a Paranoid
A "Wife's Testimony in -Florida Divorce Case";
By PETE:; GROSE His last known address, dat-
was in their.~and the false life of most of
Special to The NOr York STIMCS E ing from 1961, was "care of 1thought that 1
WASHINGTON, Dec. 4--Last, ? American Express, Rome."
October the Soviet Union an- The Russians say he traveled
.ounced the defection of an he world-Australia, South Af-
.n,:or:ran named Jnhn Discoe rica and elsewhere-be-
5 identifying him as a dis-. cow. He has now become a
7lussioned agent of the Central Soviet citizen, they ? say. They
:ntelligence Agency. / have not disclosed exactly
Articles by and about him' when he reached the Soviet
vegan o appear in the Soviet ? Union.
?r ass. Reporting details of al- Court Records Found
coed United States espionage Why did he defect?,:Bart of
activities. the answer is containe4. in the
The United States Govern- records of the Pinellas County
ment issued routine denials that Circuit Court at Clearwater,
Mr. Smith had been a C.I.A. Fla., in. September, 1961, Mary
egcnt; the State Department London Smith obtained a di-
dismissed his accounts of assas- vorce, uncontested, from . Mr.
:inations and a military plot to. Smith.
-overthrow the overnment of Ii - Just before their legal separa-
(
tion '16 months earlier, Mrs.
did. A spokesman called the. Smith told the court, he was
dories "fatuous allegations." studying to become a Roman
Reminiscences of old friends Catholic. He was a Mason; he
-ind evidence in court records, spoke of joining the fnatetrnal
indicate that Mr. Smith, who; order of the Knights of Pythias.
is from Quincy, Mass., is a con-1 Mrs. Smith said he had con-
used and troubled man who fiddd the philosophy to her
rew suspicious of wife and "that you had to loin these
amity and everything American great big organizations, even
_ife had to offer. if they were in opposition to
His story, as pieced: each other, just in order to
together from Soviet and Unit-, be in with all the big people,
nd States evidence, is one of you see, so you couldn't be
personal tragedy, not of high; attacked by anyone."
politics. The Masons would protect
Fixed Code Machines I hill'), and the Catholics would
"He was really a clean-cut
American boy, though I hate
:0 sound trite," said one friend
who had known him in the
Jnited States Embassy in New
Delhi 10 years ago. "He was
nice guy around the place.
-16 interest in politics at all.'."
State Department files show
hat he was a Foreign ServiceL
-mployc, a communica-that they were out to get him,
Jons technician, until early in Mrs. Smith told the court. Het
'
969.
He uscal'to fix all the gadgest,
lie code machines and that
-nrt of thing." This friend, a
arecr diplomat, said.
..He might have seen oc-
asional messages as he worked
oin the machines, but he cer-
ainly had no regular. access
o what the diplomatic traffic
vas all about, nor did he seem
-articularly interested."
Mr. Smith left his wife and
Isappeared from his familiar
urroundings in the summer of
960. He had been asked to
-esign from the Foreign 5er-
ice after a , government psy-
hiatrist had declared him, a
?aranoid with all-consuming
atspiciolt:~ ..__
Appraued far Release 06101 LQZ~4
protect him," she said, intern
preting what he had told her.
The same divorce proceed-
ings point to the origin of the
charges that Mr. Smith is now
making in the Soviet press.
"He had the. impression thatr
everybody was working for the
uum uaawnaa
Ap?pro ect~ 'I sWh?~ 0 ~ ?~SF 75tROPO rd ..
porting on him constantly. He Mr. and Mrs. Smith were
thought I was' drugging his transferred from India to the
United States Embassy in Vi-
food, and he also thought that) enna in November, 1959. A few
at cocktail parties I paid otherl weeks later, according to Mrs.
people to do it" I Smith's testimony, they were
In his recent statements in; ordered back to the United
Moscow Mr. Smith called his States on the advice of the
wife a "regular employe" of embassy's consulting psychia-
the C.I.A. . trist.
In response to a question : "He told me that John was
from the Florida judge six
years ago - "have you ever
been a member of the C. I. A.?
-Mrs. Smith replied, "No, I
haven't."
Mr. Smith and Mary London
in an acute stage of paranoia,
that I should take him home,"
Mrs. Smith said. Then, accord-
ing to the court records, he
was asked to resign from the
"were married in New Delhi onI The couple drove from Wash-
- May 28, 1955. She was a sec- ington to Clearwater. where
1retary in the political section'Mrs. Smith's parents live. She
of the Embassy, he traveled'said he refused to go to his
'.1through South Asia for the, home in Quincy. He moved out
tjUnitcd States Governmcnt,~of their home soon aftcrwaid
;..:maintaining and installing com-;and separation proceedings be.
?':
i :-L munications equipment, includ-'gan
:-at Embassy parties in the early
years, living in an American
compound for embassy staff,
called "The Taj." They had one
flchild, Ellen, born in Decem-
Starting the next 'year, Mrs.
Smith said, he started drinking
'
Only when the Russians be
gan publishing Mr. Smith's ac-;
count did Mrs. Smith and her.
parents learn what had become'
of him.
United ? States officials be-
lieve that Mr. Smith's account,
is a Soviet reply to the pub-,
licity given to the recent de-
and accusing her &fection in West -Germany of,
heavily
being a'spy. la Soviet intelligence officer,
The Soviet account of his'Licut. Col. Yevgeny Y. Runge.
experiences, published in Izves-; Since most of Mr. 'Smith's'
tia last month, puts the ad-;account deals with alleged es
mitted change in his 'outlook, pionage activity in India, these'''
in a different 10t. . ' . i officials also see it as a Soviet"
"All his being, which was attempt to set the Indian Gov-' honest 'and healthy on ~ the;'ernment on guard' against al-'; .
whole, rose up in. revolt against!l'eged Western intelligence -op.
the. dirty work, the meannessl orations. e:^t
r'1 _.